Love Lies Bleeding by Remmy Duchene (carter reed txt) 📕

for him and Daniel to enter his office, and Leo wanted to scream his head off.

"Well, you may want to hold off on that break," Leo muttered.

Though he was not ready to talk to the captain and normally the older man would leave him to work his case, Leo rose, took a breath, and walked with Daniel into the office. "Sit down," Captain Heron ordered softly, closing the file on his desk and removing his glasses. He leaned back in his chair, eyeing them with something akin to exasperation. "Where are you on this case?"

Leo exchanged looks with Daniel but his partner spoke first, "Nowhere, really. Everyone that's dead is somehow connected to Kim. We don't know if it's a coincidence or if the killer is going out of his or her way to find people Kim cares for."

"How are you connected to the recent victim?" Heron questioned.

"When I was a kid, he was my mother's doctor," Leo explained. "He was younger then, of course. I'm not sure why he's dead because I've only met him a couple of times."

"Do you think you're in danger, Leo?"

Leo shrugged. "I don't know. But I'm not about to go crawling under a rock. I have every intention of finding this ass and making him pay."

"What about this Anderson Williams? The judge's son?"

"What about him?" Leo felt the instant his back went up.

"Nothing is going on there. We have to keep an eye on him because he's the judge's son," Daniel spoke up.

Heron rose from his chair and walked to the coffee. He poured himself a cup and took a sip. "People are getting antsy about this guy going around cutting people's head off. And how are we always one step behind him every time? It's the same damn evidence at each scene and he hasn't managed to fuck up once!"

"Not yet." Leo was getting tired. There was a slight throb behind his right eye and all he wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed for a while.

With the meeting with the captain over, Leo sat at his desk, poring over files. When nothing popped, he left the office with Daniel by his side and made their way to Anderson's place. The house was locked up tight after being cleaned and after picking the lock, he stood in the threshold smiling.

"Remind me to change my locks." Daniel walked around him with a smile. "The fact that you can do that scares me."

"Hey, a lock is a lock so it doesn't matter if you change them." Leo shrugged. "Besides, it's not like you have anything in your house I haven't seen before."

"You'd be surprised. Look, the property isn't a crime scene anymore and it would take Anderson way too long to get here to give me a key. I don't have that kind of time."

"Or patience," Anderson added.

"Precisely."

Leo chuckled and they continued into the house. They started their nosing around in the kitchen being sure to put things back the way they found them. They didn't have a warrant, which made what they were doing very illegal. He chose to think Anderson wouldn't mind but what did he know? There were many layers to the professor Leo had yet to see.

The place smelled like it should after being locked up for a while and Leo had to resist the urge to pop a window open.

Daniel overturned a pillow. "What exactly are we looking for? I mean you guys obviously had cleaners come through here."

"I guess we'll know when we find it."

"That's reassuring."

Leo ignored that statement and continued from the kitchen to what looked to be Anderson's office. It felt strange being alone in the house. He'd gone through it before but as a cop with people around and he was on a mission. Then, he was searching the usual evidence. Now he just didn't know what he was doing. He was grasping for something—anything that would make this case click and snap from the funk it was in.

In a drawer at the bottom of the desk, he found a piece of paper. He wasn't sure what it was but it was folded neatly and shoved in between the tracks. He only knew it was there when he pulled the drawer out and it took a bit of muscle to get it back in. He unfolded the paper and tilted his head. It was a list of numbers and letters.

"Now that's strange," Leo muttered to himself.

"You said something?"

Leo quickly refolded the paper and shoved it into his pocket. If they were right and this guy was going around killing people he was close to, letting Daniel in on it would only end badly. He was going to do what he could to keep his partner safely out of it. They both didn't need to lose their badges or worse, become another victim of the killer they hunted.

"Nothing at all," Leo lied.

"There's nothing here," Daniel called then entered the room. "And I'm starting to feel as if someone is playing a drum on my brain. I'm going to head home. I have to talk to the wife anyway."

"You two aren't going to fight again, are you?"

Daniel shrugged. "I'm all fought out. I'll see you later. I'm going to head home and try not to go crazy or do anything stupid."

"You do that. I'm going to go talk to the guys in the lab. Maybe there's something they missed."

"Oh, they'll take that well."

"The world's smallest violin, man."

* * * *

Time ticked by with Anderson trying to get to spend some time with Byung. It was a pain for Byung kept having things come up on days Anderson was free. Finally, Anderson put his foot down and told Byung he was getting kidnapped. After a quick stop to see Leo and bringing him some lunch, getting to Caesar's didn't take too long for it was only a couple of blocks from the precinct. It was a popular, posh gay restaurant where anyone who's anyone